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[indistinct chatter]
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Is this chart
at a reasonable height for you?
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Or do you want it lowered?
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- [man] Fine.
- All right.
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Earlier tonight...
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Let me first ask the TV. Are you ready?
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All set? Okay.
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[dramatic music playing]
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[inaudible dialogue]
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[inaudible dialogue]
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[inaudible dialogue]
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- [music fades]
- [Robert] Let me hear your voice level.
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- Make sure it's the same.
- [man] How's my voice level?
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- [Robert] That's fine.
- [man] Terrific.
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Now, I remember exactly
the sentence I left off on.
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I remember how it started.
I was cut off in the middle.
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Uh, you can fix it up.
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I don't want to go back,
introduce the sentence,
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because I know
exactly what I wanted to say.
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- [man] Go ahead.
- Okay.
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Any military commander
who is honest with himself,
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or with those he's speaking to,
will admit that he has made mistakes
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in the application of military power.
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He's killed people unnecessarily.
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His own troops or other troops.
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Through mistakes,
through errors of judgement.
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A hundred, or thousands,
or tens of thousands, maybe even 100,000.
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But he hasn't destroyed nations.
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And the conventional wisdom is,
don't make the same mistake twice.
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Learn from your mistakes.
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And we all do.
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Maybe we make the same mistake
three times,
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but hopefully not four or five.
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There'll be no learning period
with nuclear weapons.
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You make one mistake,
you're gonna destroy nations.
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[dramatic music playing]
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In my life, I've been part of wars.
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Three years in the U.S. Army
during World War ll.
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Seven years as secretary of defense
during the Vietnam War.
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Thirteen years at the World Bank.
Across the world.
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At my age, 85,
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I'm at an age where I can look back
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and derive some conclusions
about my actions.
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My rule has been, "Try to learn."
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Try to understand what happened.
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Develop the lessons, and pass them on.
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[dramatic fanfare playing on TV]
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[reporter] This is the secretary
of defense of the United States,
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Robert McNamara.
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His department absorbs 10 percent
of the national income of this country,
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and over half of every tax dollar.
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His job has been called
the toughest in Washington.
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McNamara is the most controversial figure
that has ever held the job.
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Walter Lippmann calls him
not only the best secretary of defense,
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but the first one who ever asserted
civilian control over the military.
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His critics call him "a con man,"
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"an IBM machine with legs,"
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"an arrogant dictator."
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[pensive music playing]
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[music fades]
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[man] Mr. Secretary, I've noticed
in several cabinet offices
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that little silver calendar thing there.
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Can you explain that?
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[Robert]
Yes, this was given by President Kennedy.
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On the calendar are engraved the dates:
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October 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
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21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27,
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and finally 28, were the dates
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when we literally looked
down the gun barrel into nuclear war.
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[ominous music playing]
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[Robert] Under a cloak of deceit,
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the Soviet Union introduced
nuclear missiles
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into Cuba,
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targeting 90 million Americans.
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The CIA said the warheads
had not been delivered yet.
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They thought 20 were coming
on a ship named the Poltava.
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We mobilized 180,000 troops.
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The first day's air attack
was planned at 1080 sorties,
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a huge air attack.
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[Robert]
Kennedy was trying to keep us out of war.
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I was trying to help him
keep us out of war.
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And General Curtis LeMay,
whom I served under,
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as a matter of fact,
in World War ll, was saying:
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"Let's go in. Let's totally destroy Cuba."
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[music fades]
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On that critical Saturday, October 27th,
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we had two Khrushchev messages
in front of us.
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One had come in Friday night,
and it had been dictated
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by a man who was either drunk,
or under tremendous stress.
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Basically he said, "if you'll guarantee
you won't invade Cuba,
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we'll take the missiles out."
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Then before we could respond,
we had a second message
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that had been dictated
by a bunch of hard-liners.
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And it said, in effect, "if you attack,
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we're prepared to...
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confront you
with masses of military power."
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So, what to do? We had the soft message,
and the hard message.
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At the elbow of President Kennedy
was Tommy Thompson,
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former U.S. ambassador to Moscow.
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He and Jane, his wife,
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had literally lived with Khrushchev
and his wife upon occasion.
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Tommy Thompson said, "Mr. President,
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I urge you to respond
to the soft message."
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The president said to Tommy,
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"We can't do that.
That'll get us nowhere."
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Tommy said, "Mr. President, you're wrong."
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Now, that takes a lot of guts.
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In Thompson's mind was this thought:
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"Khrushchev's gotten himself
in a hell of a fix."
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He would then think to himself, "My God.
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If I can get out of this with a deal
that I can say to the Russian people:
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'Kennedy was going to destroy Castro,
and I prevented it."'
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Thompson, knowing Khrushchev
as he did, thought,
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"Khrushchev will accept that."
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And Thompson was right.
That's what I call empathy.
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We must try
to put ourselves inside their skin,
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and look at us through their eyes,
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just to understand the thoughts
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that lie behind their decisions
and their actions.
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Khrushchev's advisors were saying,
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"There can be no deal
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unless you somewhat
reduce the pressure on us
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when you ask us
to reduce the pressure on you."
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You...
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[man]
Also we had attempted to invade Cuba.
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Well, with the Bay of Pigs.
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That undoubtedly influenced
their thinking. I think that's correct.
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But more importantly, from a Cuban
and a Russian point of view,
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they knew what,
in a sense, I really didn't know.
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We had attempted to assassinate Castro
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under Eisenhower and under Kennedy,
and later under Johnson.
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And in addition to that, major voices
in the U.S. were calling for invasion.
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[tense, pensive music playing]
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In the first message,
Khrushchev said this:
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"We and you ought not pull
on the ends of a rope,
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which you have tied the knots of war.
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Because the more the two of us pull,
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the tighter the knot will be tied.
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And then it will be necessary
to cut that knot.
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And what that would mean
is not for me to explain to you.
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I have participated in two wars,
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and know that war ends
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when it has rolled through
cities and villages,
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everywhere sowing death and destruction.
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For such is the logic of war.
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If people do not display wisdom,
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they will clash like blind moles,
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and then mutual annihilation
will commence."
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[music fades]
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I want to say, and this is very important:
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At the end, we lucked out.
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It was luck that prevented nuclear war.
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We came that close to nuclear war
at the end.
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Rational individuals.
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Kennedy was rational.
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Khrushchev was rational.
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Castro was rational.
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Rational individuals came that close
to total destruction of their societies.
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And that danger exists today.
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[ominous music playing]
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The major lesson
of the Cuban Missile Crisis is this:
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The indefinite combination
of human fallibility
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and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.
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Is it right and proper
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that today there are 7500
strategic offensive nuclear warheads,
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of which 2500 are on 15-minute alert
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to be launched by the decision
of one human being?
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[music fades]
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It wasn't until January, 1992,
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in a meeting chaired by Castro
in Havana, Cuba,
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that I learned 162 nuclear warheads,
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including 90 tactical warheads,
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were on the island at the time
in this critical moment of the crisis.
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Uh...
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I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
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And Castro got very angry with me,
because I said,
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"Mr. President, let's stop this meeting.
This is totally new to me.
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I'm not sure I got the translation right."
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Mr. President, I have three questions.
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Number one, did you know
the nuclear warheads were there?
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Number two, if you did,
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would you have recommended to Khrushchev,
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in the face of a U.S. attack,
that he use them?
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Three, if he had used them,
what would've happened to Cuba?
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He said, "Number one,
I knew they were there.
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Number two, I would not
have recommended to Khrushchev.
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I did recommend to Khrushchev
that they be used.
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Number three, what would happen to Cuba?
It would've been totally destroyed."
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That's how close we were.
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[man] And he was willing to accept that?
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Yes. Oh, and he went on to say,
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"Mr. McNamara,
if you and President Kennedy
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had been in a similar situation,
that's what you would've done."
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I said, "Mr. President,
I hope to God we would not have done it."
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Pull the temple down on our heads? My God.
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[dramatic music playing]
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In a sense, we'd won.
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We got the missiles out without war.
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My deputy and I brought
the five chiefs over.
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We sat down with Kennedy,
and he said, "Gentlemen, we won.
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I don't want you ever to say it,
but you know we won, I know we won."
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And LeMay said, "Won? Hell, we lost.
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We should go in and wipe them out today."
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LeMay believed that ultimately
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we're gonna confront these people
in a conflict with nuclear weapons,
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and by God, we better do it
when we have greater superiority
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than we will have in the future.
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At the time,
we had a 17-to-1 strategic advantage
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in nuclear numbers.
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We'd done 10 times
as many tests as they had.
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We were certain
we could retain that advantage
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if we limited the tests.
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The chiefs were all opposed.
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They said, "The Soviets will cheat."
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I said, "How will they cheat?"
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You won't believe this, but they said,
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"They'll test them behind the moon."
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I said, "You're out of your mind."
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I said, "That's absurd."
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It's almost impossible
for our people today
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to put themselves back into that period.
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In my seven years as secretary,
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we came within a hairsbreadth
of war with the Soviet Union
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on three different occasions.
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00:19:41,805 --> 00:19:44,766
Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year,
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00:19:44,849 --> 00:19:48,269
for seven years as secretary of defense,
I lived the Cold War.
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During the Kennedy administration,
they designed a 100-megaton bomb.
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It was tested in the atmosphere.
I remember this.
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[music fades]
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Cold War?
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00:20:02,242 --> 00:20:03,702
Hell, it was a hot war.
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00:20:08,331 --> 00:20:12,919
I think the human race needs
to think more about killing,
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about conflict.
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00:20:15,714 --> 00:20:18,383
Is that what we want in this 21st century?
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[ominous music playing]
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00:20:29,894 --> 00:20:30,895
[music fades]
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00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:36,443
[pensive music playing]
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00:20:50,707 --> 00:20:55,462
My earliest memory
is of a city exploding with joy.
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It was November 11, 1918.
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I was 2 years old.
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00:21:03,470 --> 00:21:06,639
You may not believe
that I have the memory, but I do.
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00:21:07,682 --> 00:21:11,186
I remember the tops of the streetcars
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00:21:11,269 --> 00:21:14,773
being crowded with human beings
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00:21:14,856 --> 00:21:17,525
cheering, and kissing, and screaming.
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00:21:18,401 --> 00:21:20,653
End of World War I. We'd won.
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00:21:22,197 --> 00:21:25,950
But also celebrating the belief
of many Americans,
249
00:21:26,034 --> 00:21:28,870
particularly Woodrow Wilson,
we'd fought a war to end all wars.
250
00:21:32,791 --> 00:21:38,421
His dream was that the world
could avoid great wars in the future.
251
00:21:39,172 --> 00:21:42,300
Disputes among great nations
would be resolved.
252
00:21:47,055 --> 00:21:49,265
I also remember that I wasn't allowed
253
00:21:49,349 --> 00:21:51,601
to go outdoors to play with my friends
254
00:21:52,227 --> 00:21:53,728
without wearing a mask.
255
00:21:54,521 --> 00:21:56,981
There was an ungodly flu epidemic.
256
00:21:58,191 --> 00:22:01,402
Large numbers of Americans
were dying, 600,000.
257
00:22:01,486 --> 00:22:03,363
And millions across the world.
258
00:22:14,123 --> 00:22:16,125
[music fades]
259
00:22:16,209 --> 00:22:20,922
My class in the first grade was, uh,
housed in a shack, a wooden shack.
260
00:22:21,005 --> 00:22:23,007
But we had an absolutely superb teacher.
261
00:22:23,091 --> 00:22:27,887
And this teacher gave a test
to the class every month,
262
00:22:27,971 --> 00:22:31,766
and she re-seated the class
based on the results of that test.
263
00:22:31,850 --> 00:22:33,351
There were vertical rows.
264
00:22:33,434 --> 00:22:37,480
She put the person with the highest grade
in the first seat in the left-hand row.
265
00:22:37,564 --> 00:22:40,483
And I worked my tail off
to be in that first seat.
266
00:22:40,567 --> 00:22:44,195
Now, the majority of the classmates
were whites, Caucasians, so on.
267
00:22:44,279 --> 00:22:45,864
WASPs, if you will.
268
00:22:45,947 --> 00:22:52,287
But my competition for that first seat
were Chinese, Japanese, and Jews.
269
00:22:52,370 --> 00:22:55,081
On Saturday and Sunday,
I went and played with my classmates.
270
00:22:55,164 --> 00:22:56,916
They went to their ethnic schools.
271
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:01,004
They learned their native language,
they learned their culture, their history.
272
00:23:01,087 --> 00:23:04,757
They came back determined on Monday
to beat that damn Irishman.
273
00:23:04,841 --> 00:23:07,343
But they didn't do it very often.
274
00:23:08,136 --> 00:23:11,723
[man] One congressman called you
"Mr. I-Have-All-the-Answers McNamara."
275
00:23:11,806 --> 00:23:15,393
There's been suggestion from
some congressmen that you come up there,
276
00:23:15,476 --> 00:23:17,604
in spite of
the weight of their experience,
277
00:23:17,687 --> 00:23:19,939
prepared to give them
simple little lessons in things.
278
00:23:20,023 --> 00:23:21,357
Is that your attitude?
279
00:23:21,900 --> 00:23:25,737
No. Perhaps they don't know
how much I don't know.
280
00:23:25,820 --> 00:23:27,363
And there is much indeed.
281
00:23:27,447 --> 00:23:29,866
I do make a serious effort
282
00:23:29,949 --> 00:23:34,412
to prepare myself properly, uh,
for these congressional discussions.
283
00:23:34,495 --> 00:23:38,416
I suppose I spend,
perhaps, 100 or 120 hours
284
00:23:38,499 --> 00:23:41,127
in testifying before Congress each year.
285
00:23:41,210 --> 00:23:45,840
And each hour of testimony requires, uh,
three to four hours of preparation.
286
00:23:46,424 --> 00:23:49,844
[man] What about the contention that
your attitude is sometimes arrogant?
287
00:23:49,928 --> 00:23:52,305
You never admit you were wrong.
Have you ever been wrong, sir?
288
00:23:52,388 --> 00:23:54,223
Oh, yes, indeed. My heavens.
289
00:23:54,766 --> 00:23:58,978
I won't tell you when I've been wrong.
If you don't know, I won't tell you.
290
00:23:59,062 --> 00:24:01,064
But, oh, on countless occasions.
291
00:24:05,234 --> 00:24:08,655
I applied to Stanford University.
I very much wanted to go.
292
00:24:08,738 --> 00:24:12,575
But I couldn't afford it,
so I lived at home and I went to Berkeley.
293
00:24:12,659 --> 00:24:14,661
Fifty-two dollars a year tuition.
294
00:24:14,744 --> 00:24:17,705
I started Berkeley
at the bottom of the Depression.
295
00:24:17,789 --> 00:24:20,416
Twenty-five million males were unemployed.
296
00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:22,043
Out of that class of 3500,
297
00:24:22,126 --> 00:24:25,672
three elected to Phi Beta Kappa
at the end of the sophomore year.
298
00:24:25,755 --> 00:24:28,508
Of those three,
one became a Rhodes scholar,
299
00:24:28,591 --> 00:24:29,634
I went to Harvard,
300
00:24:29,717 --> 00:24:34,347
the third went to work for $65 a month,
and was damn happy to have the job.
301
00:24:35,890 --> 00:24:39,477
The society was on the verge of, uh...
302
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:41,437
I don't want to say revolution.
303
00:24:41,521 --> 00:24:45,608
Although, had Roosevelt not done
some of the things he did,
304
00:24:45,692 --> 00:24:48,111
it could've become far more violent.
305
00:24:49,070 --> 00:24:51,781
In any event,
that was what I was thrown into.
306
00:24:53,408 --> 00:24:57,870
I never heard of Plato and Aristotle
before I became a freshman at Berkeley.
307
00:24:57,954 --> 00:25:02,458
And I remember the professor, Lowenberg,
the freshman philosophy professor.
308
00:25:02,542 --> 00:25:04,877
I couldn't wait to go to another class.
309
00:25:06,170 --> 00:25:09,173
[pensive music playing]
310
00:25:16,848 --> 00:25:18,433
I took more philosophy courses,
311
00:25:18,516 --> 00:25:20,977
particularly one in logic
and one in ethics.
312
00:25:24,522 --> 00:25:26,149
The stress on values.
313
00:25:27,316 --> 00:25:29,569
Something beyond one's self.
314
00:25:30,737 --> 00:25:32,697
And a responsibility to society.
315
00:25:36,743 --> 00:25:39,037
After graduating
the University of California,
316
00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:42,123
I went to Harvard Graduate School
of Business for two years,
317
00:25:42,206 --> 00:25:44,459
and then I went back to San Francisco.
318
00:25:47,170 --> 00:25:51,549
I began to court this young lady
that I'd met when we were 17
319
00:25:51,632 --> 00:25:53,551
in our first week at Berkeley:
320
00:25:54,927 --> 00:25:56,012
Margaret Craig.
321
00:25:57,430 --> 00:26:01,601
And I was making some progress
after eight or nine months.
322
00:26:02,226 --> 00:26:04,979
I proposed and she accepted.
323
00:26:05,063 --> 00:26:09,859
She went with her aunt and her mother
on a trip across the country.
324
00:26:09,942 --> 00:26:11,527
She telegraphed me,
325
00:26:11,611 --> 00:26:15,406
"Must order engraved invitations
to include your middle name.
326
00:26:15,490 --> 00:26:16,407
What is it?"
327
00:26:16,491 --> 00:26:18,743
I wired back, "My middle name is Strange."
328
00:26:18,826 --> 00:26:21,037
She said,
"I know it's strange, but what is it?"
329
00:26:21,120 --> 00:26:24,665
Well, I mean, it is Strange.
It's Robert Strange McNamara.
330
00:26:32,882 --> 00:26:34,842
It was a marriage made in heaven.
331
00:26:38,638 --> 00:26:41,432
At the end of a year,
we had our first child.
332
00:26:42,683 --> 00:26:44,560
The delivery costs were $100,
333
00:26:44,644 --> 00:26:46,854
and we paid that $10 a month.
334
00:26:48,940 --> 00:26:51,859
Those were some
of the happiest days of our lives.
335
00:26:53,778 --> 00:26:55,696
And then the war came.
336
00:26:57,657 --> 00:27:00,660
[dramatic music playing]
337
00:27:05,581 --> 00:27:07,375
I'd been promoted to assistant professor.
338
00:27:07,458 --> 00:27:09,627
I was the youngest assistant professor
at Harvard.
339
00:27:10,503 --> 00:27:13,339
And on a salary,
by the way, of $4000 a year.
340
00:27:19,512 --> 00:27:23,266
Harvard Business School's
market was drying up.
341
00:27:23,349 --> 00:27:25,768
The males were being drafted
or volunteering.
342
00:27:26,310 --> 00:27:30,022
So the dean, being farsighted,
brought back a government contract
343
00:27:30,106 --> 00:27:32,233
to establish an officer candidate school
344
00:27:32,316 --> 00:27:36,404
for what was called
Statistical Control in the Air Force.
345
00:27:43,995 --> 00:27:47,290
We said to the Air Force,
"We won't take anybody you send up here.
346
00:27:47,373 --> 00:27:49,208
We're gonna select the people."
347
00:27:50,585 --> 00:27:52,211
You have a punch card
348
00:27:52,295 --> 00:27:55,131
for every human being
brought into the Air Corps.
349
00:27:55,214 --> 00:27:59,844
We're gonna run those punch cards
through the IBM sorting machines,
350
00:27:59,927 --> 00:28:02,889
and we're gonna sort on age, education,
351
00:28:02,972 --> 00:28:06,017
accomplishment, grades, et cetera.
352
00:28:08,644 --> 00:28:10,521
We were looking
for the best and brightest.
353
00:28:11,063 --> 00:28:14,859
The best brains,
the greatest capacity to lead,
354
00:28:15,443 --> 00:28:16,611
the best judgment.
355
00:28:28,998 --> 00:28:30,958
The U.S. was just beginning to bomb.
356
00:28:32,668 --> 00:28:34,337
We were bombing by daylight.
357
00:28:34,879 --> 00:28:37,006
The loss rate was very, very high.
358
00:28:40,092 --> 00:28:42,678
So they commissioned a study.
359
00:28:42,762 --> 00:28:44,013
And what did we find?
360
00:28:44,096 --> 00:28:46,474
We found the abort rate was 20 percent.
361
00:28:46,557 --> 00:28:48,935
Twenty percent of the planes
that took off from England
362
00:28:49,018 --> 00:28:52,521
to bomb targets in Germany turned around
before they got to the target.
363
00:28:52,605 --> 00:28:55,900
That was a hell of a mess.
We lost 20 percent of our capability.
364
00:28:57,235 --> 00:29:01,072
A form called Form 1-A,
something like that, was a mission report.
365
00:29:01,614 --> 00:29:04,533
If you aborted a mission,
you had to write down why.
366
00:29:04,617 --> 00:29:06,827
We get all these things and analyze them.
367
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:09,705
And we finally concluded:
368
00:29:10,665 --> 00:29:11,707
It was baloney.
369
00:29:12,250 --> 00:29:14,085
They were aborting out of fear.
370
00:29:14,669 --> 00:29:17,380
Because the loss rate
was 4 percent per sortie.
371
00:29:17,463 --> 00:29:19,757
The combat tour was 25 sorties.
372
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:24,929
Didn't mean 100 percent would be killed,
but a lot of them were. They knew that.
373
00:29:25,012 --> 00:29:27,640
They found reasons
to not go over the target.
374
00:29:29,517 --> 00:29:30,977
So we reported this.
375
00:29:35,690 --> 00:29:37,275
[music fades]
376
00:29:37,358 --> 00:29:40,069
One of the commanders was Curtis LeMay.
377
00:29:40,152 --> 00:29:42,488
Colonel in command of a B-24 group.
378
00:29:43,614 --> 00:29:48,160
He was the finest combat commander
of any service I came across in war.
379
00:29:48,244 --> 00:29:51,497
But he was extraordinarily belligerent,
many thought brutal.
380
00:29:52,039 --> 00:29:55,126
He got the report. He issued an order.
381
00:29:55,209 --> 00:29:58,212
He said, "I will be in the lead plane
on every mission.
382
00:29:58,296 --> 00:30:01,299
Any plane that takes off
will go over the target,
383
00:30:01,382 --> 00:30:03,426
or the crew will be court-martialed."
384
00:30:03,509 --> 00:30:05,469
The abort rate dropped overnight.
385
00:30:08,014 --> 00:30:10,266
That's the kind of a commander he was.
386
00:30:11,976 --> 00:30:15,730
[announcer on radio] Ladies and gentlemen,
the president of the United States.
387
00:30:16,814 --> 00:30:20,067
[President Truman]
My friends, on this Christmas Eve,
388
00:30:20,151 --> 00:30:22,528
there are over 10 million men
389
00:30:22,611 --> 00:30:25,990
in the Armed Forces
of the United States alone.
390
00:30:26,991 --> 00:30:32,330
One year ago,
1, 700,000 were serving overseas.
391
00:30:32,872 --> 00:30:38,836
By next July 1st,
that number will rise to over 5 million.
392
00:30:39,962 --> 00:30:45,676
Plenty of bad news for the Japs
in the not-too-far-distant future.
393
00:30:49,513 --> 00:30:52,516
[dramatic music playing]
394
00:31:04,987 --> 00:31:09,283
The U.S. Air Force had a new airplane,
named the B-29.
395
00:31:16,749 --> 00:31:19,585
The B-17s and B-24s in Europe
396
00:31:19,668 --> 00:31:22,296
bombed from 15, 16,000 feet.
397
00:31:24,924 --> 00:31:27,927
The problem was that
they were subject to antiaircraft fire,
398
00:31:28,010 --> 00:31:29,512
and to fighter aircraft.
399
00:31:31,222 --> 00:31:34,016
To relieve that,
this B-29 was being developed
400
00:31:34,100 --> 00:31:37,019
that bombed from high altitude,
and it was thought
401
00:31:37,103 --> 00:31:40,773
we could destroy targets
much more efficiently and effectively.
402
00:31:48,739 --> 00:31:51,409
I was brought back from the 8th Air Force,
403
00:31:51,492 --> 00:31:53,828
and assigned to the first B-29s,
404
00:31:53,911 --> 00:31:55,246
the 58th Bomb Wing.
405
00:31:56,997 --> 00:32:01,419
We had to fly those planes
from the bases in Kansas to India.
406
00:32:03,712 --> 00:32:06,549
Then we had to fly fuel
over the hump into China.
407
00:32:19,145 --> 00:32:21,021
[music fades]
408
00:32:23,065 --> 00:32:25,693
[somber music playing]
409
00:32:26,527 --> 00:32:30,239
The airfields were built
with Chinese labor.
410
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,369
It was an insane operation.
411
00:32:39,457 --> 00:32:43,669
I can still remember them hauling
these huge rollers
412
00:32:43,752 --> 00:32:46,255
to crush the stone, make them flat.
413
00:32:48,966 --> 00:32:51,760
Somebody would slip,
the roller would roll over him,
414
00:32:51,844 --> 00:32:53,637
everybody would laugh, and go on.
415
00:32:57,308 --> 00:33:01,312
We were supposed to take these B-29s--
There were no tanker aircraft.
416
00:33:01,395 --> 00:33:03,397
We were to fill them with fuel,
417
00:33:03,481 --> 00:33:07,443
fly from India to Chengdu,
offload the fuel, fly back to India,
418
00:33:07,526 --> 00:33:10,863
make enough missions
to build up fuel in Chengdu,
419
00:33:11,739 --> 00:33:14,241
fly to Yawata, Japan,
bomb the steel mills,
420
00:33:14,325 --> 00:33:15,701
and go back to India.
421
00:33:18,037 --> 00:33:22,458
We had so little training
on this problem of maximizing efficiency,
422
00:33:22,541 --> 00:33:25,002
we actually found,
to get some of the B-29s back,
423
00:33:25,085 --> 00:33:27,630
instead of offloading fuel,
they had to take it on.
424
00:33:29,673 --> 00:33:31,675
[music fades]
425
00:33:31,759 --> 00:33:33,511
To make a long story short,
426
00:33:33,594 --> 00:33:35,095
it wasn't worth a damn.
427
00:33:35,930 --> 00:33:38,933
And it was LeMay
who really came to that conclusion,
428
00:33:39,016 --> 00:33:41,477
and led the chiefs
to move the whole thing to the Marianas,
429
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,687
which devastated Japan.
430
00:33:45,773 --> 00:33:48,776
[tense, pensive music playing]
431
00:34:27,231 --> 00:34:29,608
LeMay was focused on only one thing:
432
00:34:31,860 --> 00:34:33,153
Target destruction.
433
00:34:35,906 --> 00:34:38,576
Most Air Force generals could tell you
how many planes they had,
434
00:34:38,659 --> 00:34:41,078
how many tons of bombs they dropped,
or whatever it was.
435
00:34:41,161 --> 00:34:44,623
But he was the only person that I knew
436
00:34:44,707 --> 00:34:47,668
in the senior command in the Air Force
who focused solely
437
00:34:47,751 --> 00:34:51,338
on the loss of his crews
per unit of target destruction.
438
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:58,554
I was on the island of Guam,
439
00:34:58,637 --> 00:35:01,974
in his command, in March of 1945.
440
00:35:04,268 --> 00:35:05,853
In that single night,
441
00:35:06,437 --> 00:35:11,650
we burned to death
100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo.
442
00:35:11,734 --> 00:35:13,235
Men, women, and children.
443
00:35:17,698 --> 00:35:20,075
[man]
Were you aware this was going to happen?
444
00:35:22,244 --> 00:35:23,370
Well, I was...
445
00:35:23,454 --> 00:35:28,584
I was part of a mechanism that,
in a sense, recommended it.
446
00:35:44,141 --> 00:35:48,228
I analyzed bombing operations,
and how to make them more efficient.
447
00:35:48,854 --> 00:35:52,024
I.e., not more efficient
in the sense of killing more,
448
00:35:52,107 --> 00:35:55,694
but more efficient
in weakening the adversary.
449
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:00,366
I wrote one report,
450
00:36:01,450 --> 00:36:05,621
analyzing the efficiency
of the B-29 operations.
451
00:36:07,498 --> 00:36:10,000
The B-29 could get above
the fighter aircraft,
452
00:36:10,084 --> 00:36:14,129
and above the air defense,
so the loss rate would be much less.
453
00:36:14,213 --> 00:36:15,589
The problem was,
454
00:36:15,673 --> 00:36:17,716
the accuracy was also much less.
455
00:36:29,395 --> 00:36:32,648
Now, I don't want to suggest
that it was my report
456
00:36:32,731 --> 00:36:35,234
that led to--
I'll call it the firebombing.
457
00:36:36,568 --> 00:36:38,278
[music fades]
458
00:36:38,362 --> 00:36:42,074
It isn't that I'm trying to absolve myself
of blame for the firebombing.
459
00:36:42,157 --> 00:36:44,368
I don't want to suggest that it was I
460
00:36:44,451 --> 00:36:49,456
that put in LeMay's mind that
his operations were totally inefficient
461
00:36:49,540 --> 00:36:51,542
and had to be drastically changed.
462
00:36:51,625 --> 00:36:53,460
But anyhow, that's what he did.
463
00:36:54,169 --> 00:36:59,466
He took the B-29s down to 5000 feet,
464
00:36:59,550 --> 00:37:02,219
and he decided to bomb with firebombs.
465
00:37:04,847 --> 00:37:07,808
[dramatic music playing]
466
00:37:21,196 --> 00:37:23,282
I participated in the interrogation
467
00:37:23,365 --> 00:37:26,326
of the B-29 bomber crews
that came back that night.
468
00:37:27,202 --> 00:37:31,915
A roomful of crewmen
and intelligence interrogators.
469
00:37:31,999 --> 00:37:34,251
A captain got up, young captain, said,
470
00:37:34,334 --> 00:37:37,129
"Goddamn it, I'd like to know
who the son of a bitch was
471
00:37:37,212 --> 00:37:42,176
that took this magnificent airplane,
designed to bomb from 23,000 feet
472
00:37:42,259 --> 00:37:45,512
and he took it down to 5000 feet,
and I lost my wingman.
473
00:37:46,096 --> 00:37:47,723
He was shot and killed."
474
00:37:49,850 --> 00:37:51,852
LeMay spoke in monosyllables.
475
00:37:52,561 --> 00:37:57,107
I never heard him say
more than two words in sequence.
476
00:37:57,191 --> 00:38:00,611
It was basically, "Yes, '' ''No, '' ''Yep,"
477
00:38:01,195 --> 00:38:02,362
or "Hell with it."
478
00:38:02,446 --> 00:38:03,822
That was all he said.
479
00:38:06,074 --> 00:38:08,994
And LeMay was totally intolerant
of criticism.
480
00:38:09,077 --> 00:38:11,705
He never engaged
in discussion with anybody.
481
00:38:13,373 --> 00:38:14,416
He stood up.
482
00:38:16,043 --> 00:38:16,877
"Why are we here?
483
00:38:18,003 --> 00:38:18,962
Why are we here?
484
00:38:20,380 --> 00:38:21,757
You lost your wingman.
485
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:23,342
It hurts me as much as...
486
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:26,011
it does you.
487
00:38:26,094 --> 00:38:27,346
I sent him there.
488
00:38:28,889 --> 00:38:30,974
I've been there. I know what it is.
489
00:38:31,517 --> 00:38:34,520
But you lost one wingman,
490
00:38:34,603 --> 00:38:36,480
and we destroyed Tokyo."
491
00:38:42,110 --> 00:38:44,947
Fifty square miles of Tokyo were burned.
492
00:38:46,657 --> 00:38:48,075
Tokyo was a wooden city.
493
00:38:48,158 --> 00:38:51,161
When we dropped these firebombs,
it just burned it.
494
00:39:23,318 --> 00:39:25,320
[music fades]
495
00:39:39,251 --> 00:39:42,504
[man] The choice of incendiary bombs.
496
00:39:42,588 --> 00:39:44,298
Where did that come from?
497
00:39:45,716 --> 00:39:50,679
I think the issue
is not so much incendiary bombs.
498
00:39:50,762 --> 00:39:52,472
I think the issue is,
499
00:39:52,556 --> 00:39:55,309
in order to win a war, should you
kill 100,000 people in one night?
500
00:39:55,392 --> 00:39:57,019
By firebombing or any other way?
501
00:39:57,102 --> 00:39:59,521
LeMay's answer would be, clearly, "Yes."
502
00:39:59,605 --> 00:40:03,400
"McNamara, do you mean to say
that instead of killing 100,000,
503
00:40:03,483 --> 00:40:07,112
burning to death 100,000
Japanese civilians in that one night,
504
00:40:07,195 --> 00:40:09,990
we should have burned to death
a lesser number, or none?
505
00:40:10,073 --> 00:40:13,076
And then had our soldiers
cross the beaches in Tokyo
506
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:15,078
and been slaughtered
in the tens of thousands?
507
00:40:15,162 --> 00:40:18,707
Is that what you're proposing?
Is that moral? Is that wise?"
508
00:40:18,790 --> 00:40:21,418
Why was it necessary
to drop the nuclear bomb
509
00:40:21,501 --> 00:40:23,837
if LeMay was burning up Japan?
510
00:40:23,921 --> 00:40:28,300
And he went on from Tokyo
to firebomb other cities.
511
00:40:28,383 --> 00:40:31,428
Fifty-eight percent of Yokohama.
Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland.
512
00:40:31,511 --> 00:40:34,014
Fifty-eight percent
of Cleveland destroyed.
513
00:40:34,097 --> 00:40:36,224
[dramatic music playing]
514
00:40:36,308 --> 00:40:40,437
Tokyo is roughly the size of New York.
Fifty-one percent of New York destroyed.
515
00:40:40,979 --> 00:40:44,942
Ninety-nine percent of the equivalent
of Chattanooga, which was Toyama.
516
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:49,363
Forty percent of the equivalent
of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya.
517
00:40:51,615 --> 00:40:53,742
This was all done before
518
00:40:54,451 --> 00:40:56,370
the dropping of the nuclear bomb.
519
00:40:57,037 --> 00:40:59,831
Which, by the way,
was dropped by LeMay's command.
520
00:41:03,710 --> 00:41:06,505
Proportionality should be
a guideline in war.
521
00:41:30,362 --> 00:41:34,324
Killing 50 to 90 percent of the people
522
00:41:34,408 --> 00:41:36,368
in 67 Japanese cities,
523
00:41:36,994 --> 00:41:39,788
and then bombing them
with two nuclear bombs,
524
00:41:40,580 --> 00:41:43,917
is not proportional,
in the minds of some people,
525
00:41:44,001 --> 00:41:46,545
to the objectives
we were trying to achieve.
526
00:42:03,562 --> 00:42:07,232
I don't fault Truman
for dropping the nuclear bomb.
527
00:42:07,315 --> 00:42:10,402
The U.S.-Japanese War
was one of the most brutal wars
528
00:42:10,485 --> 00:42:11,903
in all of human history.
529
00:42:13,071 --> 00:42:15,949
Kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable.
530
00:42:16,742 --> 00:42:18,452
What one can criticize
531
00:42:18,535 --> 00:42:22,164
is that the human race
prior to that time, and today,
532
00:42:22,247 --> 00:42:26,960
has not really grappled with what are,
I'll call it, "the rules of war."
533
00:42:27,044 --> 00:42:30,088
Was there a rule then
that said you shouldn't bomb,
534
00:42:30,172 --> 00:42:33,050
shouldn't kill, shouldn't burn to death
100,000 civilians in a night?
535
00:42:36,428 --> 00:42:38,305
LeMay said, "if we'd lost the war,
536
00:42:38,388 --> 00:42:40,849
we'd all have been prosecuted
as war criminals."
537
00:42:41,391 --> 00:42:42,768
And I think he's right.
538
00:42:45,771 --> 00:42:47,731
He and, I'd say, I
539
00:42:48,732 --> 00:42:50,567
were behaving as war criminals.
540
00:42:50,650 --> 00:42:52,652
[music fades]
541
00:42:55,322 --> 00:42:58,784
LeMay recognized that what he was doing
542
00:42:59,701 --> 00:43:01,119
would be thought immoral
543
00:43:02,245 --> 00:43:03,747
if his side had lost.
544
00:43:06,083 --> 00:43:09,211
But what makes it immoral if you lose
and not immoral if you win?
545
00:43:14,299 --> 00:43:17,302
[ominous music playing]
546
00:45:22,427 --> 00:45:23,637
[President Johnson] Okay, Bob.
547
00:45:36,399 --> 00:45:39,194
[man] At some point,
we have to approach Vietnam,
548
00:45:39,277 --> 00:45:42,822
and I want to know
how you can best set that up for me.
549
00:45:42,906 --> 00:45:44,908
Yeah, well, uh...
550
00:45:45,450 --> 00:45:47,953
That's a hard, hard question.
551
00:45:48,036 --> 00:45:50,163
I think, uh...
552
00:45:51,831 --> 00:45:55,877
I think we have to approach it
in the context of the Cold War.
553
00:45:55,961 --> 00:45:59,089
But first I'll have to talk about Ford.
554
00:45:59,172 --> 00:46:01,132
I've got to go back to the end of the war.
555
00:46:04,344 --> 00:46:07,347
[dramatic music playing]
556
00:46:13,895 --> 00:46:15,605
I had a terrible headache.
557
00:46:16,648 --> 00:46:20,527
So, Marg drove me in
to the Air Force Regional Hospital.
558
00:46:21,486 --> 00:46:23,405
A week later, Marg came in,
559
00:46:24,114 --> 00:46:25,991
many of the same symptoms.
560
00:46:26,992 --> 00:46:30,120
It's hard to believe,
and I haven't heard of another case,
561
00:46:30,203 --> 00:46:33,039
where two individuals, husband and wife,
562
00:46:33,123 --> 00:46:35,709
came down, essentially,
at the same time with polio.
563
00:46:37,585 --> 00:46:40,005
We were both in the hospital on V-J Day.
564
00:46:42,090 --> 00:46:44,092
[music fades]
565
00:46:44,175 --> 00:46:45,218
A friend of mine said,
566
00:46:45,302 --> 00:46:50,015
"We're gonna find a corporation in America
that needs the advice and capabilities
567
00:46:50,098 --> 00:46:52,684
of this extraordinary group of people
I'll bring together.
568
00:46:52,767 --> 00:46:53,852
You gotta be part of it."
569
00:46:53,935 --> 00:46:57,147
I said, "To hell with it.
I'm going back to Harvard.
570
00:46:57,230 --> 00:47:00,066
That's what Marg and I want.
I'll spend my life there."
571
00:47:00,150 --> 00:47:03,820
He said, "Look, Bob,
you can't pay Marg's hospital bills.
572
00:47:03,903 --> 00:47:05,030
You're crazy as hell."
573
00:47:05,113 --> 00:47:06,364
He said, "By the way,
574
00:47:06,448 --> 00:47:10,118
the company that most needs our help
in all the U.S. is Ford."
575
00:47:10,201 --> 00:47:11,536
I said, "How'd you learn that?"
576
00:47:11,619 --> 00:47:13,580
He said,
"I read An article in LIFE magazine."
577
00:47:15,165 --> 00:47:17,584
Of the top 1000 executives
at Ford Motor Company,
578
00:47:17,667 --> 00:47:20,211
I don't believe
there were 10 college graduates.
579
00:47:21,254 --> 00:47:23,423
And Henry Ford ll needed help.
580
00:47:23,506 --> 00:47:26,092
[pensive music playing]
581
00:47:26,176 --> 00:47:27,969
They were gonna give us tests.
582
00:47:28,636 --> 00:47:30,013
Two full days of testing.
583
00:47:30,096 --> 00:47:34,184
Intelligence tests, achievement tests,
personality tests, you name it.
584
00:47:34,267 --> 00:47:38,646
This sounds absurd, but I remember
one question on one of the tests was:
585
00:47:38,730 --> 00:47:41,733
"Would you rather be a florist
or a coal miner?"
586
00:47:44,527 --> 00:47:45,779
I had been a florist.
587
00:47:45,862 --> 00:47:49,366
I worked as a florist
during some of my Christmas vacations.
588
00:47:49,449 --> 00:47:53,203
I put down coal miner.
I think the reasons are obvious to you.
589
00:47:55,663 --> 00:47:58,750
This group of 10 people had been trained
590
00:47:58,833 --> 00:48:00,877
in the Officer Candidate School
at Harvard.
591
00:48:01,878 --> 00:48:05,340
In some tests, we had the highest marks
that had ever been scored.
592
00:48:05,423 --> 00:48:08,760
In other tests,
we were in the upper 1 percentile.
593
00:48:15,725 --> 00:48:18,061
From 1926 to 1946,
594
00:48:18,144 --> 00:48:19,521
including the war years,
595
00:48:19,604 --> 00:48:22,524
Ford Motor Company just barely broke even.
596
00:48:23,566 --> 00:48:25,568
It was a god-awful mess.
597
00:48:28,113 --> 00:48:31,658
I thought we had a responsibility
to the stockholders.
598
00:48:32,409 --> 00:48:33,535
And God knows,
599
00:48:33,618 --> 00:48:36,538
you cannot believe
how bad the situation had been.
600
00:48:51,469 --> 00:48:53,471
[music fades]
601
00:48:54,973 --> 00:48:56,724
They had no market research organization.
602
00:48:56,808 --> 00:48:59,602
I set one up. Manager said,
"What do you want me to study?"
603
00:48:59,686 --> 00:49:02,522
I said,
"Find out who's buying the Volkswagens.
604
00:49:02,605 --> 00:49:05,066
Everybody says it's a no-good car.
605
00:49:05,150 --> 00:49:09,070
It was only selling about 20,000 a year,
but I want to know what'll happen.
606
00:49:09,154 --> 00:49:12,532
Is it gonna stay the same,
or go down, or go up?
607
00:49:12,615 --> 00:49:13,783
Find out who buys them."
608
00:49:13,867 --> 00:49:15,535
He came back six months later, he said,
609
00:49:15,618 --> 00:49:20,248
"Well, they're professors,
and they're doctors, and they're lawyers.
610
00:49:20,331 --> 00:49:22,667
They're obviously people
who can afford more."
611
00:49:23,793 --> 00:49:27,046
That set me to thinking about
what we in the industry should do.
612
00:49:27,130 --> 00:49:28,965
Was there a market we were missing?
613
00:49:29,048 --> 00:49:30,925
[pensive music playing]
614
00:49:31,009 --> 00:49:35,221
At this time, nobody believed
Americans wanted cheaper cars.
615
00:49:35,305 --> 00:49:37,432
They wanted conspicuous consumption.
616
00:49:39,309 --> 00:49:42,937
Cadillac, with these huge,
ostentatious fins,
617
00:49:43,021 --> 00:49:45,940
set the style for the industry
for 10 or 15 years.
618
00:49:47,901 --> 00:49:49,736
That's what we were up against.
619
00:49:52,572 --> 00:49:55,492
We introduced the Falcon
as a more economical car,
620
00:49:56,284 --> 00:49:59,412
and it was a huge success profit-wise.
621
00:50:04,584 --> 00:50:05,960
We accomplished a lot.
622
00:50:22,101 --> 00:50:24,896
I said, "What about accidents?
I hear a lot about accidents."
623
00:50:25,688 --> 00:50:28,566
"Oh, yes,
we'll get you some data on that."
624
00:50:32,654 --> 00:50:37,825
There were about 40-odd thousand deaths
per year from automobile accidents,
625
00:50:37,909 --> 00:50:39,994
and about a million,
or a million-two injuries.
626
00:50:40,495 --> 00:50:42,789
I said, "What causes it?"
He said, "It's obvious.
627
00:50:42,872 --> 00:50:44,958
It's human error and mechanical failure."
628
00:50:46,125 --> 00:50:49,504
I said, "if it's mechanical,
we might be involved. Dig into this.
629
00:50:49,587 --> 00:50:51,714
If it's mechanical failure,
I want to stop it."
630
00:50:51,798 --> 00:50:55,635
Well, he said, "There's really
very few statistics available."
631
00:50:55,718 --> 00:50:58,263
I said, "Damn it, find out,
what can we learn?"
632
00:50:58,346 --> 00:51:01,307
He said, "The only place
that knows anything about it
633
00:51:01,391 --> 00:51:03,017
is Cornell Aeronautical Labs."
634
00:51:03,101 --> 00:51:05,645
They said,
"The major problem is packaging."
635
00:51:05,728 --> 00:51:09,357
They said, "You buy eggs.
You know how eggs come in a carton?"
636
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:11,526
I said, "I don't buy eggs.
My wife does it."
637
00:51:11,609 --> 00:51:13,736
"Well," they said, "you ask her,
638
00:51:13,820 --> 00:51:18,157
when she puts that carton down
on the drainboard when she gets home,
639
00:51:18,241 --> 00:51:19,617
do the eggs break?"
640
00:51:19,701 --> 00:51:21,327
I asked Marg. She said, no.
641
00:51:21,411 --> 00:51:24,163
Cornell said, "They don't break
because they're packaged properly.
642
00:51:24,247 --> 00:51:27,250
Now, if we packaged people in cars
the same way,
643
00:51:27,333 --> 00:51:29,043
we could reduce the breakage."
644
00:51:29,127 --> 00:51:32,130
[pensive music playing]
645
00:51:39,304 --> 00:51:40,597
We lacked lab facilities,
646
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,474
so we dropped human skulls
in different packages
647
00:51:43,558 --> 00:51:47,186
down the stairwells
of the dormitories at Cornell.
648
00:51:49,772 --> 00:51:51,399
Well, that sounds absurd,
649
00:51:51,482 --> 00:51:53,901
but that guy was absolutely right.
650
00:51:54,569 --> 00:51:57,447
It was packaging
which could make the difference.
651
00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:11,294
In a crash, the driver was often impaled
on the steering wheel.
652
00:52:13,963 --> 00:52:18,718
The passenger was often injured
because he'd hit the windshield,
653
00:52:18,801 --> 00:52:21,638
or the header bar,
or the instrument panel.
654
00:52:24,223 --> 00:52:26,893
So in the 1956 model Ford,
655
00:52:26,976 --> 00:52:29,896
we introduced steering wheels
that prevented being impaled,
656
00:52:29,979 --> 00:52:32,482
we introduced padded instrument panels,
657
00:52:32,565 --> 00:52:34,275
and we introduced seat belts.
658
00:52:36,194 --> 00:52:39,989
We estimated if there would be
100-percent use of the seat belts,
659
00:52:40,073 --> 00:52:42,575
we could save
20-odd thousand lives a year.
660
00:52:43,451 --> 00:52:45,578
Everybody was opposed to it.
661
00:52:53,378 --> 00:52:56,047
You couldn't get people to use seat belts.
662
00:52:56,714 --> 00:52:59,425
But those who did saved their lives.
663
00:52:59,509 --> 00:53:02,512
[dramatic music playing]
664
00:53:17,193 --> 00:53:18,569
Now, let me jump ahead.
665
00:53:27,620 --> 00:53:29,956
It's July, 1960.
666
00:53:30,039 --> 00:53:31,207
[music fades]
667
00:53:31,290 --> 00:53:34,460
John Bugas, vice president,
Industrial Relations,
668
00:53:34,544 --> 00:53:37,797
clearly had his eyes
on becoming president.
669
00:53:38,381 --> 00:53:42,719
I'm the group vice president in charge
of all of the car divisions.
670
00:53:43,302 --> 00:53:45,763
Henry was a night owl.
He always went out on the town.
671
00:53:45,847 --> 00:53:49,308
It's 2 a.m. or something.
He said, "Bob, come up, have a nightcap."
672
00:53:49,392 --> 00:53:52,019
I said, "I don't want one.
I'm going to bed."
673
00:53:52,103 --> 00:53:54,063
John said, "I'll come up, Henry."
674
00:53:54,147 --> 00:53:55,982
Henry said,
"I didn't ask you. I asked Bob."
675
00:53:56,065 --> 00:53:58,151
He said, "Bob, come on up."
So I finally went up.
676
00:53:58,234 --> 00:54:00,111
That's when he asked me to be president.
677
00:54:00,194 --> 00:54:03,197
[dramatic music playing]
678
00:54:04,240 --> 00:54:07,493
I was the first president
in the history of the company
679
00:54:07,577 --> 00:54:12,039
that had ever been president
other than a member of the Ford family.
680
00:54:12,123 --> 00:54:14,417
And after five weeks, I quit.
681
00:54:26,554 --> 00:54:28,347
The telephone rang.
682
00:54:28,431 --> 00:54:31,225
A person comes on and says,
"I'm Robert Kennedy.
683
00:54:31,768 --> 00:54:34,145
My brother, Jack Kennedy, would like you
684
00:54:34,228 --> 00:54:36,856
to meet our brother-in-law,
Sargent Shriver."
685
00:54:37,607 --> 00:54:40,234
Four o'clock, Sarge comes in.
Never met him.
686
00:54:40,318 --> 00:54:45,615
And he said, "I've been authorized
by my brother-in-law, Jack Kennedy,
687
00:54:45,698 --> 00:54:48,201
to offer you the position
of secretary of the treasury."
688
00:54:48,284 --> 00:54:49,702
I said, "You're out of your mind.
689
00:54:49,786 --> 00:54:53,456
I know a little about finance,
but I'm not qualified."
690
00:54:53,539 --> 00:54:55,333
"Anticipating you might say that,
691
00:54:55,416 --> 00:54:58,836
the president-elect authorized me
to offer you secretary of defense."
692
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:01,255
I said, "I was in World War II
for three years.
693
00:55:01,339 --> 00:55:04,467
But secretary of defense?
I'm not qualified."
694
00:55:04,550 --> 00:55:07,929
He said, "Anticipating that,
would you do him the courtesy
695
00:55:08,012 --> 00:55:09,555
of agreeing to meet with him?"
696
00:55:09,639 --> 00:55:12,767
So I go home. I meet with Marg.
697
00:55:12,850 --> 00:55:17,271
If I could appoint
every senior official in the department,
698
00:55:17,355 --> 00:55:20,233
and if I could be guaranteed
I wouldn't have to be part
699
00:55:20,316 --> 00:55:22,527
of that damn Washington social world.
700
00:55:22,610 --> 00:55:26,572
She said, "Well, why don't you
write a contract with the president?
701
00:55:26,656 --> 00:55:29,075
If he'll accept those two conditions,
do it."
702
00:55:29,158 --> 00:55:33,579
My total net worth at the time
was on the order of 800,000,
703
00:55:33,663 --> 00:55:38,334
but I had huge unfulfilled
stock options worth millions.
704
00:55:38,417 --> 00:55:41,295
I was one of the highest-paid
executives in the world.
705
00:55:41,379 --> 00:55:43,130
And the future was brilliant.
706
00:55:45,466 --> 00:55:47,260
We had called our children in.
707
00:55:47,802 --> 00:55:49,929
Their life would be totally changed.
708
00:55:51,264 --> 00:55:55,309
The salary of a cabinet secretary then
was $25,000 a year.
709
00:55:56,060 --> 00:55:58,980
So we explained to the children,
they'd be giving up a few...
710
00:55:59,063 --> 00:56:00,481
They could care less.
711
00:56:00,565 --> 00:56:01,983
Marg could care less.
712
00:56:05,486 --> 00:56:08,489
[auspicious music playing]
713
00:56:09,574 --> 00:56:10,491
It was snowing.
714
00:56:11,701 --> 00:56:15,580
The Secret Service took me
in the house by the back way.
715
00:56:17,039 --> 00:56:19,375
I can still see it. There's a loveseat.
716
00:56:19,458 --> 00:56:21,961
Two armchairs
with a lamp table in between.
717
00:56:22,503 --> 00:56:26,257
Jack Kennedy's in one armchair
and Bobby Kennedy's in the other.
718
00:56:27,967 --> 00:56:29,802
"Mr. President, it's absurd.
719
00:56:29,886 --> 00:56:31,220
I'm not qualified."
720
00:56:33,347 --> 00:56:34,223
"Look, Bob."
721
00:56:34,765 --> 00:56:38,060
He said, "I don't think
there's any school for presidents either.
722
00:56:41,355 --> 00:56:44,150
Let's announce it now.
I'll write the announcement."
723
00:56:44,233 --> 00:56:47,904
So he wrote out the announcement,
we walk out the front door.
724
00:56:47,987 --> 00:56:52,366
All of these television cameras,
and press, till hell wouldn't have it.
725
00:56:52,450 --> 00:56:56,746
That's how Marg learned I had accepted.
It was on television, live.
726
00:56:58,247 --> 00:57:01,250
All right, why don't we do
some pictures afterwards?
727
00:57:03,169 --> 00:57:05,087
I've asked Robert McNamara
728
00:57:05,755 --> 00:57:09,175
to assume the responsibilities
of secretary of defense.
729
00:57:09,258 --> 00:57:13,387
And I'm glad and happy to say
that he has accepted this responsibility.
730
00:57:13,930 --> 00:57:17,516
Mr. McNamara leaves the presidency
of the Ford company,
731
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:19,477
at great personal sacrifice.
732
00:57:21,604 --> 00:57:23,022
[Robert] That's the way it began.
733
00:57:25,816 --> 00:57:28,402
You know, it was a traumatic period.
734
00:57:28,486 --> 00:57:31,197
My wife probably got ulcers from it.
735
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:33,574
May even ultimately have died
from the stress.
736
00:57:33,658 --> 00:57:36,285
My son got ulcers. It was very traumatic.
737
00:57:36,369 --> 00:57:39,413
But they were some
of the best years of our life,
738
00:57:39,497 --> 00:57:43,209
and all members of my family
benefited from it.
739
00:57:44,418 --> 00:57:45,503
It was terrific.
740
00:57:50,299 --> 00:57:53,302
[ominous music playing]
741
00:57:57,640 --> 00:57:58,849
October 2nd.
742
00:57:59,725 --> 00:58:02,311
I had returned from Vietnam.
743
00:58:03,646 --> 00:58:07,066
At that time,
we had 16,000 military advisors.
744
00:58:09,860 --> 00:58:13,197
I recommended to President Kennedy
and to the Security Council
745
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:18,119
that we establish a plan and an objective
746
00:58:18,202 --> 00:58:20,788
of removing all of them within two years.
747
00:58:54,989 --> 00:58:56,991
[music fades]
748
00:58:57,074 --> 00:59:00,703
Kennedy announced we were going
to pull out all of our military advisors
749
00:59:00,786 --> 00:59:04,290
by the end of '65,
going to take 1 000 out at the end of '63,
750
00:59:04,373 --> 00:59:05,291
and we did.
751
00:59:05,875 --> 00:59:06,709
But...
752
00:59:07,918 --> 00:59:10,838
there was a coup in South Vietnam.
753
00:59:13,299 --> 00:59:15,342
Diem was overthrown.
754
00:59:16,385 --> 00:59:18,637
And he and his brother were killed.
755
00:59:20,806 --> 00:59:23,768
I was present with the president
756
00:59:23,851 --> 00:59:27,063
when together,
we received information of that coup.
757
00:59:27,146 --> 00:59:28,647
I've never seen him...
758
00:59:30,357 --> 00:59:31,275
more upset.
759
00:59:31,817 --> 00:59:33,152
He totally blanched.
760
00:59:34,111 --> 00:59:36,822
President Kennedy and I
had tremendous problems with Diem,
761
00:59:36,906 --> 00:59:38,074
but my God.
762
00:59:38,657 --> 00:59:41,243
He was the authority.
He was the head of state.
763
00:59:41,327 --> 00:59:43,829
And he was overthrown by a military coup.
764
00:59:43,913 --> 00:59:48,250
And Kennedy knew, and I knew,
that to some degree,
765
00:59:48,334 --> 00:59:51,045
the U.S. government
was responsible for that.
766
00:59:53,839 --> 00:59:56,842
[somber music playing]
767
01:00:04,016 --> 01:00:07,394
I was in my office in the Pentagon
768
01:00:07,937 --> 01:00:09,480
when the telephone rang,
769
01:00:10,397 --> 01:00:11,649
and it was Bobby.
770
01:00:13,317 --> 01:00:15,820
The president had been shot in Dallas.
771
01:00:20,032 --> 01:00:23,119
Perhaps 45 minutes later,
Bobby called again,
772
01:00:23,202 --> 01:00:25,121
and said the president was dead.
773
01:00:27,331 --> 01:00:30,167
Jackie would like me
to come out to the hospital.
774
01:00:31,669 --> 01:00:35,256
We took the body to the White House
about whatever it was, 4 a.m.,
775
01:00:35,339 --> 01:00:38,342
and called the superintendent
of Arlington Cemetery.
776
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:40,761
And he and I...
777
01:00:41,595 --> 01:00:42,429
Uh...
778
01:00:44,515 --> 01:00:46,142
walked over those grounds.
779
01:00:48,769 --> 01:00:49,603
They're...
780
01:00:50,229 --> 01:00:52,439
They're hauntingly beautiful grounds.
781
01:00:53,357 --> 01:00:55,234
White crosses, row on row.
782
01:00:56,026 --> 01:01:00,156
And finally I thought
I'd found the exact spot,
783
01:01:00,239 --> 01:01:02,199
the most beautiful spot in the cemetery.
784
01:01:03,617 --> 01:01:06,537
I called Jackie at the White House
and asked her to come out there.
785
01:01:06,620 --> 01:01:08,539
She immediately accepted.
786
01:01:09,331 --> 01:01:11,542
That's where
the president is buried today.
787
01:01:12,710 --> 01:01:17,381
A park service ranger came up to me,
and said that he...
788
01:01:20,134 --> 01:01:20,968
He had...
789
01:01:23,762 --> 01:01:27,892
escorted President Kennedy
on a tour of those grounds,
790
01:01:27,975 --> 01:01:29,268
a few weeks before.
791
01:01:30,311 --> 01:01:31,687
And Kennedy said,
792
01:01:31,770 --> 01:01:34,773
that was the most beautiful spot
in Washington.
793
01:01:35,357 --> 01:01:36,859
That's where he's buried.
794
01:01:45,326 --> 01:01:47,328
[music fades]
795
01:01:48,454 --> 01:01:50,497
I will do my best.
796
01:01:51,624 --> 01:01:54,210
That is all I can do.
797
01:01:55,544 --> 01:01:58,505
I ask for your help,
798
01:01:59,548 --> 01:02:00,633
and God's.
799
01:02:15,856 --> 01:02:16,857
[President Johnson]
800
01:02:27,409 --> 01:02:29,370
[President Johnson]
I'll tell you what I would say.
801
01:02:57,898 --> 01:02:59,733
Well, I think this:
802
01:03:40,607 --> 01:03:43,610
[somber music playing]
803
01:04:44,546 --> 01:04:46,548
[music fades]
804
01:04:48,967 --> 01:04:51,053
[Herlihy] Make no bones of this.
805
01:04:51,637 --> 01:04:54,431
Don't try to sweep this under the rug.
806
01:04:54,515 --> 01:04:57,559
We are at war in Vietnam.
807
01:04:58,894 --> 01:05:01,230
[crowd applauding]
808
01:05:02,398 --> 01:05:03,941
And yet the president
809
01:05:04,024 --> 01:05:08,070
and his secretary of defense
continues to mislead
810
01:05:08,153 --> 01:05:10,697
and misinform the American people,
811
01:05:10,781 --> 01:05:12,783
and enough of it's gone by.
812
01:05:12,866 --> 01:05:14,868
[crowd cheering and applauding]
813
01:05:22,376 --> 01:05:25,379
[dramatic music playing]
814
01:05:38,517 --> 01:05:39,643
[Robert] On August 2nd,
815
01:05:40,394 --> 01:05:43,021
the destroyer Maddox
reported it was attacked
816
01:05:43,105 --> 01:05:45,107
by a North Vietnamese patrol boat.
817
01:05:46,442 --> 01:05:50,320
It was an act of aggression against us.
We were in international waters.
818
01:05:50,404 --> 01:05:52,656
I sent officials
from the Defense Department out,
819
01:05:52,739 --> 01:05:58,162
and we recovered pieces that were clearly
identified as North Vietnamese shells
820
01:05:58,245 --> 01:05:59,663
from the deck of the Maddox.
821
01:05:59,746 --> 01:06:02,541
There was no question in my mind
that it had occurred.
822
01:06:02,624 --> 01:06:05,627
But, in any event, we didn't respond.
823
01:06:06,211 --> 01:06:10,090
And it was very difficult.
It was difficult for the president.
824
01:06:10,674 --> 01:06:13,927
There were very, very senior people,
in uniform and out,
825
01:06:14,011 --> 01:06:16,472
who said, "My God, this president is..."
826
01:06:17,014 --> 01:06:19,850
They didn't use the word "coward,"
but in effect,
827
01:06:19,933 --> 01:06:22,227
"He's not protecting
the national interest."
828
01:06:34,573 --> 01:06:38,785
Two days later the Maddox
and the Turner Joy, two destroyers,
829
01:06:38,869 --> 01:06:40,829
reported they were attacked.
830
01:06:49,796 --> 01:06:53,550
There were sonar soundings.
Torpedoes had been detected.
831
01:06:53,634 --> 01:06:56,970
Other indications of attack
from patrol boats.
832
01:06:57,054 --> 01:07:01,141
We spent about 10 hours that day trying
to find out what in the hell had happened.
833
01:07:03,060 --> 01:07:06,563
At one point the ship's commander said,
"We're not certain of the attack."
834
01:07:06,647 --> 01:07:08,774
Another point they said, "We're positive."
835
01:07:08,857 --> 01:07:11,401
Then finally, late in the day,
Admiral Sharp said,
836
01:07:11,485 --> 01:07:13,904
"Yes, we're certain it happened."
837
01:07:15,030 --> 01:07:16,657
I reported this to Johnson,
838
01:07:16,740 --> 01:07:18,325
and as a result,
839
01:07:19,618 --> 01:07:23,997
there were bombing attacks
on targets in North Vietnam.
840
01:07:38,470 --> 01:07:40,806
Johnson said, "We may have to escalate.
841
01:07:40,889 --> 01:07:44,226
I'm not gonna do it
without Congressional authority."
842
01:07:44,309 --> 01:07:45,978
And he put forward a resolution,
843
01:07:46,061 --> 01:07:50,399
the language of which
gave complete authority to the president
844
01:07:50,482 --> 01:07:52,025
to take the nation to war:
845
01:07:52,734 --> 01:07:54,528
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution.
846
01:07:58,031 --> 01:08:01,451
Now let me go back
to the August 4th attack.
847
01:08:03,036 --> 01:08:06,039
[ominous music playing]
848
01:08:15,465 --> 01:08:17,551
- Yup.
- [Sharp] No, I don't... Wait a minute.
849
01:08:21,471 --> 01:08:23,807
- [Burchinal] Right.
- [Sharp]
850
01:08:41,325 --> 01:08:42,326
[Moore]
851
01:09:02,095 --> 01:09:04,806
- [Sharp]
- [Burchinal] Yeah.
852
01:09:04,890 --> 01:09:06,099
[Sharp] No doubt about that.
853
01:09:08,226 --> 01:09:10,937
It was just confusion.
854
01:09:11,021 --> 01:09:14,232
And events afterwards showed
855
01:09:14,316 --> 01:09:18,403
that our judgment that
we'd been attacked that day was wrong.
856
01:09:19,696 --> 01:09:20,697
It didn't happen.
857
01:09:25,327 --> 01:09:30,582
And the judgment that
we'd been attacked on August 2nd,
858
01:09:30,666 --> 01:09:32,334
which we'd made, was right.
859
01:09:32,417 --> 01:09:33,710
We had been.
860
01:09:33,794 --> 01:09:36,797
Although that was disputed at the time.
861
01:09:37,673 --> 01:09:40,133
So we were right once, and wrong once.
862
01:09:40,967 --> 01:09:44,680
Ultimately, President Johnson
authorized bombing in response
863
01:09:44,763 --> 01:09:47,432
to what he thought
had been the second attack.
864
01:09:47,516 --> 01:09:51,311
It hadn't occurred, but that's irrelevant
to the point I'm making here.
865
01:09:51,395 --> 01:09:54,981
He authorized the attack
on the assumption it had occurred.
866
01:09:56,692 --> 01:10:00,153
And his belief that
it was a conscious decision
867
01:10:01,405 --> 01:10:04,408
on the part of the North Vietnamese
political and military leaders
868
01:10:04,491 --> 01:10:06,076
to escalate the conflict,
869
01:10:08,036 --> 01:10:11,248
and an indication
they would not stop short of winning.
870
01:10:11,998 --> 01:10:15,252
[tense, pensive music playing]
871
01:10:17,045 --> 01:10:17,963
We were wrong.
872
01:10:18,630 --> 01:10:22,843
But we had in our minds
a mindset that led to that action.
873
01:10:24,386 --> 01:10:26,513
And it carried such heavy costs.
874
01:10:37,190 --> 01:10:41,695
We see incorrectly,
or we see only half of the story at times.
875
01:10:43,321 --> 01:10:47,075
- [man] We see what we want to believe.
- [Robert] You're absolutely right.
876
01:10:49,619 --> 01:10:51,163
Belief and seeing...
877
01:10:52,497 --> 01:10:53,999
They're both often wrong.
878
01:10:57,002 --> 01:10:59,004
[music fades]
879
01:11:01,173 --> 01:11:02,632
We Americans know,
880
01:11:03,258 --> 01:11:05,594
although others appear to forget,
881
01:11:06,386 --> 01:11:08,889
the risk of spreading conflict.
882
01:11:10,348 --> 01:11:13,769
We still seek no wider war.
883
01:11:13,852 --> 01:11:16,855
[dramatic music playing]
884
01:11:34,831 --> 01:11:36,917
[Robert] We introduced
what was called Rolling Thunder,
885
01:11:37,000 --> 01:11:41,046
which, over the years,
became a very, very heavy bombing program.
886
01:11:41,797 --> 01:11:44,382
Two to three times as many bombs
as were dropped
887
01:11:44,466 --> 01:11:47,093
on Western Europe
during all of World War ll.
888
01:12:07,364 --> 01:12:09,658
[young Robert]
This is not primarily a military problem.
889
01:12:10,242 --> 01:12:15,080
It's a battle for the hearts and the minds
of the people of South Vietnam.
890
01:12:16,748 --> 01:12:18,625
As a prerequisite to that,
891
01:12:18,708 --> 01:12:22,003
we must be able
to guarantee their physical security.
892
01:12:44,067 --> 01:12:46,069
[music fades]
893
01:13:06,756 --> 01:13:09,759
[ominous music playing]
894
01:14:26,670 --> 01:14:29,673
[dramatic music playing]
895
01:15:37,157 --> 01:15:38,575
...at the rate we're going.
896
01:15:41,327 --> 01:15:44,831
[man 1 on TV] It was announced today
that total American casualties in Vietnam
897
01:15:44,914 --> 01:15:47,125
now number 4877,
898
01:15:47,208 --> 01:15:50,253
including 748 killed.
899
01:15:50,336 --> 01:15:52,130
[man 2 on TV]
Secretary of Defense McNamara,
900
01:15:52,213 --> 01:15:54,841
on each of his seven
inspection trips to Vietnam,
901
01:15:54,924 --> 01:15:57,969
has found some positive aspect
of the course of the war there.
902
01:15:58,845 --> 01:16:01,639
The most vivid impression
I'm bringing back is that
903
01:16:02,223 --> 01:16:04,017
we've stopped losing the war.
904
01:16:04,100 --> 01:16:08,188
The North Vietnamese, we believe,
have nine regiments of their army...
905
01:16:08,271 --> 01:16:10,231
[man 3 on TV]
Some of the men had a little training
906
01:16:10,315 --> 01:16:12,901
in a state park in Kentucky
before coming here.
907
01:16:12,984 --> 01:16:15,737
It did not prepare them
for the thicket of trees,
908
01:16:15,820 --> 01:16:17,447
spiked vines, thorn bushes,
909
01:16:17,530 --> 01:16:21,159
almost perpendicular cliffs,
90-degree temperature, insects...
910
01:16:21,242 --> 01:16:23,912
[man 4 on TV]
This has changed from a nasty little war
911
01:16:23,995 --> 01:16:26,206
to a nasty middle-sized war.
912
01:16:27,082 --> 01:16:30,376
The Vietnamese are still doing
most of the fighting,
913
01:16:30,460 --> 01:16:32,253
and most of the dying,
914
01:16:32,337 --> 01:16:35,548
but week after week,
American casualty figures go up...
915
01:16:35,632 --> 01:16:38,802
[President Johnson] Now, America
wins the wars that she undertakes.
916
01:16:38,885 --> 01:16:40,595
Make no mistake about it.
917
01:16:42,055 --> 01:16:47,268
And we have declared war
on tyranny and aggression.
918
01:16:47,352 --> 01:16:51,689
If this little nation goes down the drain
and can't maintain independence,
919
01:16:51,773 --> 01:16:55,401
ask yourself what's gonna happen
to all the other little nations.
920
01:16:58,571 --> 01:17:01,574
[ominous music playing]
921
01:17:35,984 --> 01:17:37,527
[Robert] Let me go back one moment.
922
01:17:39,946 --> 01:17:43,575
In the Cuban missile crisis, at the end,
923
01:17:43,658 --> 01:17:49,038
I think we did put ourselves
in the skin of the Soviets.
924
01:17:51,082 --> 01:17:52,792
In the case of Vietnam,
925
01:17:52,876 --> 01:17:55,503
we didn't know them
well enough to empathize.
926
01:17:56,045 --> 01:17:58,673
There was total misunderstanding
as a result.
927
01:18:00,258 --> 01:18:05,471
They believed that we had simply
replaced the French as a colonial power,
928
01:18:05,555 --> 01:18:11,019
and we were seeking
to subject South and North Vietnam
929
01:18:11,811 --> 01:18:13,354
to our colonial interests,
930
01:18:13,438 --> 01:18:15,440
which was absolutely absurd.
931
01:18:15,982 --> 01:18:20,695
And we, we saw Vietnam
as an element of the Cold War.
932
01:18:21,446 --> 01:18:25,408
Not what they saw it as, a civil war.
933
01:18:33,208 --> 01:18:36,211
[pensive music playing]
934
01:18:37,253 --> 01:18:39,631
There aren't many examples
935
01:18:40,423 --> 01:18:44,802
in which you bring
two former enemies together
936
01:18:45,803 --> 01:18:47,263
at the highest levels,
937
01:18:47,805 --> 01:18:50,350
and discuss what might have been.
938
01:18:52,810 --> 01:18:55,146
I formed the hypothesis that
939
01:18:55,230 --> 01:18:58,149
each of us
could have achieved our objectives
940
01:18:58,233 --> 01:19:00,235
without the terrible loss of life.
941
01:19:01,694 --> 01:19:04,864
And I wanted to test that
by going to Vietnam.
942
01:19:08,284 --> 01:19:11,829
The former foreign minister of Vietnam,
943
01:19:11,913 --> 01:19:16,125
a wonderful man named Thach,
said, "You're totally wrong.
944
01:19:17,335 --> 01:19:21,547
We were fighting for our independence.
You were fighting to enslave us."
945
01:19:23,591 --> 01:19:26,844
We almost came to blows.
That was noon on the first day.
946
01:19:28,638 --> 01:19:32,642
"Do you mean to say
it was not a tragedy for you
947
01:19:33,351 --> 01:19:38,231
when you lost 3,400,000 Vietnamese killed,
948
01:19:38,314 --> 01:19:42,151
which on our population base
is the equivalent of 27 million Americans?
949
01:19:42,235 --> 01:19:43,653
What did you accomplish?
950
01:19:44,195 --> 01:19:47,407
You didn't get any more than we
were willing to give you at the beginning.
951
01:19:47,490 --> 01:19:50,994
You could've had the whole damn thing:
Independence, unification."
952
01:19:52,662 --> 01:19:55,456
"Mr. McNamara, you must never
have read a history book.
953
01:19:55,540 --> 01:20:00,545
If you had, you'd know we weren't pawns
of the Chinese or the Russians.
954
01:20:01,587 --> 01:20:02,839
Didn't you know that?
955
01:20:02,922 --> 01:20:07,302
Don't you understand that we have been
fighting the Chinese for 1000 years?
956
01:20:08,678 --> 01:20:12,515
We were fighting for our independence.
We'd fight to the last man.
957
01:20:12,598 --> 01:20:14,100
We were determined to.
958
01:20:14,183 --> 01:20:18,021
No amount of bombing or U.S. pressure
would ever have stopped us."
959
01:20:21,316 --> 01:20:24,319
[pensive music playing]
960
01:20:35,830 --> 01:20:37,332
What makes us omniscient?
961
01:20:40,585 --> 01:20:42,503
Have we a record of omniscience?
962
01:20:47,967 --> 01:20:50,678
We are the strongest nation
in the world today.
963
01:20:52,096 --> 01:20:54,599
I do not believe we should ever apply
964
01:20:54,682 --> 01:20:58,019
that economic, political,
or military power unilaterally.
965
01:21:00,897 --> 01:21:05,401
If we had followed that rule in Vietnam,
we wouldn't have been there.
966
01:21:10,073 --> 01:21:11,991
None of our allies supported us.
967
01:21:13,034 --> 01:21:15,745
Not Japan, not Germany,
not Britain, or France.
968
01:21:20,917 --> 01:21:24,253
If we can't persuade nations
with comparable values
969
01:21:24,337 --> 01:21:25,922
of the merit of our cause,
970
01:21:26,798 --> 01:21:28,925
we'd better reexamine our reasoning.
971
01:21:38,476 --> 01:21:40,311
Americans suffered
their heaviest casualties
972
01:21:40,395 --> 01:21:42,021
of the war in Vietnam last week:
973
01:21:42,105 --> 01:21:44,190
543 killed in action.
974
01:21:44,273 --> 01:21:48,069
Another 1247 were wounded
and hospitalized.
975
01:21:48,152 --> 01:21:52,615
The deaths raise the U.S. total
in the war so far to 18,239.
976
01:21:53,241 --> 01:21:56,869
South Vietnamese put their losses
for the week at 522 killed.
977
01:21:56,953 --> 01:21:59,497
Communist losses were not reported.
978
01:21:59,580 --> 01:22:03,459
Contributing to those record casualties
has been steady Communist bombardment
979
01:22:03,543 --> 01:22:05,878
of the Marine outpost at Khe Sanh.
980
01:22:05,962 --> 01:22:09,424
There, the North Vietnamese have
been tightening their ring around...
981
01:22:09,507 --> 01:22:11,092
[dramatic music playing]
982
01:22:11,175 --> 01:22:12,844
Military expects a full-scale assault.
983
01:22:39,996 --> 01:22:43,207
[man] To what extent did you feel
that you were the author of stuff,
984
01:22:43,291 --> 01:22:48,087
or that you were an instrument
of things outside of your control?
985
01:22:48,171 --> 01:22:51,132
Well, I don't think I felt either.
986
01:22:51,215 --> 01:22:55,887
I just felt that I was serving
at the request of a president
987
01:22:55,970 --> 01:22:58,598
who'd been elected by the American people.
988
01:22:58,681 --> 01:23:03,519
And it was my responsibility
to try to help him, uh...
989
01:23:04,145 --> 01:23:08,608
to carry out the office as he believed
was in the interest of our people.
990
01:23:08,691 --> 01:23:10,318
[dramatic music playing]
991
01:23:38,554 --> 01:23:43,309
What is morally appropriate
in a wartime environment?
992
01:23:49,524 --> 01:23:51,442
Let me give you an illustration.
993
01:23:59,033 --> 01:24:00,660
While I was secretary,
994
01:24:01,577 --> 01:24:05,122
we used what's called
Agent Orange in Vietnam.
995
01:24:06,249 --> 01:24:09,293
A chemical
that strips leaves off of trees.
996
01:24:11,712 --> 01:24:16,509
After the war, it is claimed that
that was a toxic chemical,
997
01:24:16,592 --> 01:24:19,262
and it killed many individuals,
998
01:24:19,971 --> 01:24:22,974
soldiers and civilians exposed to it.
999
01:24:25,017 --> 01:24:31,399
Were those who issued the approval
to use Agent Orange criminals?
1000
01:24:31,482 --> 01:24:33,776
Were they committing a crime
against humanity?
1001
01:24:36,612 --> 01:24:38,072
Let's look at the law.
1002
01:24:38,739 --> 01:24:41,284
Now, what kind of a law
do we have that says
1003
01:24:41,367 --> 01:24:45,329
these chemicals are acceptable in war,
and these chemicals are not?
1004
01:24:45,871 --> 01:24:47,873
We don't have clear definitions
of that kind.
1005
01:24:47,957 --> 01:24:54,547
I never in the world would have
authorized an illegal action.
1006
01:24:55,089 --> 01:24:58,050
I'm not really sure I authorized
Agent Orange. I don't remember it.
1007
01:24:58,134 --> 01:24:59,468
But it certainly occurred.
1008
01:24:59,552 --> 01:25:02,179
The use of it occurred
while I was secretary.
1009
01:25:10,438 --> 01:25:13,441
[pensive music playing]
1010
01:25:22,074 --> 01:25:25,328
Norman Morrison was a Quaker.
1011
01:25:26,370 --> 01:25:29,123
He was opposed to war,
the violence of war, the killing.
1012
01:25:30,541 --> 01:25:33,294
He came to the Pentagon,
1013
01:25:33,377 --> 01:25:35,671
doused himself with gasoline.
1014
01:25:38,507 --> 01:25:40,885
Burned himself to death below my office.
1015
01:25:44,930 --> 01:25:47,391
He held a child in his arms, his daughter.
1016
01:25:48,893 --> 01:25:53,731
Passersby shouted, "Save the child!"
He threw the child out of his arms.
1017
01:25:53,814 --> 01:25:56,734
And the child lived, and is alive today.
1018
01:25:56,817 --> 01:26:00,279
His wife issued a very moving statement:
1019
01:26:00,363 --> 01:26:05,534
"Human beings must stop killing
other human beings."
1020
01:26:06,494 --> 01:26:08,788
And that's a belief that I shared.
1021
01:26:08,871 --> 01:26:12,124
I shared it then.
I believe it even more strongly today.
1022
01:26:13,167 --> 01:26:16,921
How much evil must we do
in order to do good?
1023
01:26:18,339 --> 01:26:21,258
We have certain ideals,
certain responsibilities.
1024
01:26:22,927 --> 01:26:26,806
Recognize that at times
you will have to engage in evil,
1025
01:26:26,889 --> 01:26:28,099
but minimize it.
1026
01:26:34,146 --> 01:26:38,109
I remember reading that General Sherman,
in the Civil War,
1027
01:26:38,192 --> 01:26:41,570
the mayor of Atlanta
pleaded with him to save the city.
1028
01:26:42,822 --> 01:26:45,116
And Sherman essentially said to the mayor,
1029
01:26:45,199 --> 01:26:47,827
just before he torched it
and burned it down,
1030
01:26:48,828 --> 01:26:50,413
"War is cruel.
1031
01:26:50,496 --> 01:26:51,706
War is cruelty."
1032
01:26:53,541 --> 01:26:55,209
That was the way LeMay felt.
1033
01:26:56,210 --> 01:26:58,713
He was trying to save the country.
1034
01:26:58,796 --> 01:27:02,049
He was trying to save our nation.
1035
01:27:02,800 --> 01:27:04,218
And in the process,
1036
01:27:05,052 --> 01:27:07,972
he was prepared
to do whatever killing was necessary.
1037
01:27:11,809 --> 01:27:17,523
It's a very, very difficult position
for sensitive human beings to be in.
1038
01:27:17,606 --> 01:27:19,400
Morrison was one of those.
1039
01:27:19,483 --> 01:27:20,693
I think I was.
1040
01:27:25,239 --> 01:27:28,242
[dramatic music playing]
1041
01:27:28,325 --> 01:27:31,579
Fifty thousand people came to Washington
1042
01:27:31,662 --> 01:27:34,248
to demonstrate against the war.
1043
01:27:37,960 --> 01:27:40,379
About 20,000 of them marched
on the Pentagon.
1044
01:27:46,510 --> 01:27:50,723
The Pentagon is a very, very difficult
building to defend.
1045
01:27:51,307 --> 01:27:54,602
We placed troops carrying rifles
around it.
1046
01:27:55,311 --> 01:27:57,897
U.S. marshals in front of the soldiers.
1047
01:28:00,274 --> 01:28:04,445
But I told the president,
not a rifle would be loaded
1048
01:28:04,528 --> 01:28:06,655
without my personal permission.
1049
01:28:06,739 --> 01:28:08,407
And I wasn't gonna grant it.
1050
01:28:14,330 --> 01:28:16,332
[indistinct shouting]
1051
01:28:44,443 --> 01:28:49,740
[man] What effect did all
of this dissent have on your thinking?
1052
01:28:49,824 --> 01:28:52,952
I mean, Norman Morrison is '65.
This is '67.
1053
01:28:53,035 --> 01:28:55,746
Well, it was a very tense period.
1054
01:28:57,331 --> 01:29:01,001
Very tense period for my family,
which I don't want to discuss.
1055
01:29:04,255 --> 01:29:07,216
[man] How was your thinking changing
during this period?
1056
01:29:09,760 --> 01:29:12,304
I don't think my thinking was changing.
1057
01:29:12,388 --> 01:29:14,056
We were in the Cold War.
1058
01:29:14,598 --> 01:29:16,851
And this was a Cold War...
1059
01:29:18,018 --> 01:29:20,229
uh, activity.
1060
01:29:22,898 --> 01:29:25,901
[dramatic music playing]
1061
01:30:10,070 --> 01:30:14,992
Some commentators have said the war
is turning into a kind of stalemate...
1062
01:30:15,075 --> 01:30:17,912
No, no, I think on the contrary,
1063
01:30:17,995 --> 01:30:23,042
as General Westmoreland has pointed out,
in recent weeks in Saigon,
1064
01:30:23,584 --> 01:30:26,754
the military operations,
the large-unit military operations,
1065
01:30:26,837 --> 01:30:30,758
continue to show
very substantial progress.
1066
01:30:40,768 --> 01:30:43,312
[Robert]
One of the lessons I learned early on:
1067
01:30:44,063 --> 01:30:45,314
Never say never.
1068
01:30:45,397 --> 01:30:46,732
Never, never, never.
1069
01:30:48,108 --> 01:30:49,234
Never say never.
1070
01:30:51,445 --> 01:30:52,488
And secondly,
1071
01:30:53,530 --> 01:30:56,283
never answer the question
that is asked of you.
1072
01:30:58,243 --> 01:31:01,538
Answer the question
that you wish had been asked of you.
1073
01:31:04,249 --> 01:31:05,793
And quite frankly,
1074
01:31:05,876 --> 01:31:07,252
I follow that rule.
1075
01:31:07,795 --> 01:31:09,129
It's a very good rule.
1076
01:31:14,051 --> 01:31:16,053
[music fades]
1077
01:31:19,807 --> 01:31:22,142
[man]
When you talk about the responsibility
1078
01:31:22,226 --> 01:31:25,020
for something like the Vietnam War,
1079
01:31:28,607 --> 01:31:30,776
whose responsibility is it?
1080
01:31:30,859 --> 01:31:32,528
It's the president's responsibility.
1081
01:31:33,696 --> 01:31:36,532
I don't want to fail to recognize
1082
01:31:36,615 --> 01:31:40,577
the tremendous contribution
I think Johnson made to the country.
1083
01:31:40,661 --> 01:31:45,582
I don't want to put the responsibility
for Vietnam on his shoulders alone.
1084
01:31:45,666 --> 01:31:47,793
But I do-- I am inclined to believe,
1085
01:31:47,876 --> 01:31:50,212
if Kennedy had lived
he would've made a difference.
1086
01:31:50,295 --> 01:31:53,340
I don't think
we would've had 500,000 men there.
1087
01:31:57,761 --> 01:31:59,805
Two very telling photographs.
1088
01:32:00,931 --> 01:32:03,058
One of them has Johnson like this:
1089
01:32:04,268 --> 01:32:09,148
You can just see him thinking,
"My God, I'm in a hell of a mess.
1090
01:32:09,690 --> 01:32:12,526
And this guy is trying
to tell me to do something
1091
01:32:12,609 --> 01:32:15,487
that I know is wrong,
and I'm not gonna do.
1092
01:32:15,571 --> 01:32:17,614
But how the hell
am I gonna get out of this?"
1093
01:32:19,283 --> 01:32:21,577
The other photograph,
you can see me saying,
1094
01:32:21,660 --> 01:32:26,248
"Jesus Christ, I love this man,
I respect him, but he's totally wrong.
1095
01:32:26,331 --> 01:32:27,541
What am I gonna do?"
1096
01:32:29,334 --> 01:32:32,838
Johnson couldn't persuade me,
and I couldn't persuade him.
1097
01:32:35,758 --> 01:32:39,511
I had this enormous respect,
and affection, loyalty,
1098
01:32:39,595 --> 01:32:41,263
to both Kennedy and Johnson.
1099
01:32:41,805 --> 01:32:46,852
But at the end, Johnson and I
found ourselves poles apart.
1100
01:32:46,935 --> 01:32:49,813
And I said to a very close
and dear friend of mine,
1101
01:32:49,897 --> 01:32:52,316
Kay Graham, former publisher
of The Washington Post,
1102
01:32:52,399 --> 01:32:56,528
"Even to this day, Kay,
I don't know whether I quit or was fired."
1103
01:32:57,613 --> 01:32:59,990
She said, "You're out of your mind.
Of course you were fired."
1104
01:33:01,158 --> 01:33:04,161
[dramatic music playing]
1105
01:33:09,708 --> 01:33:12,586
November 1, 1967.
1106
01:33:16,173 --> 01:33:18,550
I presented a memo to Johnson that said,
1107
01:33:19,468 --> 01:33:21,720
"The course we're on is totally wrong.
1108
01:33:23,138 --> 01:33:24,473
We've gotta change it.
1109
01:33:28,143 --> 01:33:30,521
Cut back at what we're doing in Vietnam.
1110
01:33:33,690 --> 01:33:35,609
We gotta reduce the casualties."
1111
01:33:35,692 --> 01:33:36,735
And so on.
1112
01:33:40,489 --> 01:33:43,117
It was an extraordinarily
controversial memo.
1113
01:33:43,200 --> 01:33:46,036
And I took it to him.
I delivered it myself.
1114
01:33:46,995 --> 01:33:48,872
"Mr. President, nobody has seen this.
1115
01:33:48,956 --> 01:33:52,501
Not Dean Rusk, not the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs. Nobody."
1116
01:33:53,794 --> 01:33:57,131
"I know that
it may contain recommendations
1117
01:33:57,214 --> 01:34:00,342
and statements
that you do not agree with or support."
1118
01:34:05,764 --> 01:34:07,141
I never heard from him.
1119
01:34:13,397 --> 01:34:14,898
Something had to give.
1120
01:34:22,030 --> 01:34:24,575
There was a rumor that
I was facing a mental breakdown.
1121
01:34:24,658 --> 01:34:27,202
I was under such pressure and stress.
1122
01:34:30,706 --> 01:34:32,791
I don't think that was the case at all.
1123
01:34:37,713 --> 01:34:40,507
But it was a really traumatic departure.
1124
01:34:45,971 --> 01:34:47,389
That's the way it ended.
1125
01:34:47,472 --> 01:34:49,474
[music fades]
1126
01:34:52,936 --> 01:34:54,521
Except for one thing.
1127
01:34:57,733 --> 01:35:01,320
He awarded me the Medal of Freedom
1128
01:35:01,403 --> 01:35:04,364
in a very beautiful ceremony
at the White House.
1129
01:35:05,282 --> 01:35:10,120
And he was very, very warm
in his comments.
1130
01:35:10,204 --> 01:35:14,625
And I became so emotional,
I could not respond.
1131
01:35:18,754 --> 01:35:20,756
[audience applauding]
1132
01:35:26,511 --> 01:35:27,721
[young Robert] Mr. President...
1133
01:35:30,224 --> 01:35:32,559
I cannot find words to...
1134
01:35:34,353 --> 01:35:36,647
express what lies in my heart today.
1135
01:35:40,609 --> 01:35:43,362
I think I'd better respond
on another occasion.
1136
01:35:43,445 --> 01:35:46,448
[dramatic music playing]
1137
01:35:54,623 --> 01:35:57,542
And had I responded, I would have said,
1138
01:35:57,626 --> 01:35:59,753
"I know what many of you are thinking.
1139
01:36:00,295 --> 01:36:02,422
You're thinking this man is duplicitous.
1140
01:36:02,965 --> 01:36:04,341
You're thinking that...
1141
01:36:05,300 --> 01:36:07,928
he has held things close to his chest.
1142
01:36:08,011 --> 01:36:09,388
You're thinking that...
1143
01:36:11,056 --> 01:36:13,850
he did not respond fully
1144
01:36:14,518 --> 01:36:17,604
to the desires and wishes
of the American people.
1145
01:36:17,688 --> 01:36:19,314
I wanna tell you you're wrong."
1146
01:36:19,898 --> 01:36:24,361
Of course he had personal idiosyncrasies.
1147
01:36:24,444 --> 01:36:25,821
No question about that.
1148
01:36:26,655 --> 01:36:29,324
He didn't accept all the advice
he was given.
1149
01:36:31,243 --> 01:36:32,744
On several occasions,
1150
01:36:33,370 --> 01:36:36,581
his associates advised him
to be more forthcoming.
1151
01:36:37,499 --> 01:36:38,500
He wasn't.
1152
01:36:41,795 --> 01:36:45,716
People did not understand at that time
there were recommendations and pressures
1153
01:36:45,799 --> 01:36:49,511
that would carry the risk
of war with China, and of nuclear war.
1154
01:36:49,594 --> 01:36:51,513
He was determined to prevent it.
1155
01:36:56,852 --> 01:37:01,982
I'm arguing that he had a reason
in his mind for doing what he did.
1156
01:37:05,944 --> 01:37:08,822
And, of course, shortly after I left,
1157
01:37:09,531 --> 01:37:12,868
Johnson concluded
that he couldn't continue.
1158
01:37:22,753 --> 01:37:26,298
[man] At this point, how many Americans
had been killed in Vietnam?
1159
01:37:27,632 --> 01:37:30,093
About 25,000.
1160
01:37:30,177 --> 01:37:35,474
Less than half
of the number ultimately killed, 58,000.
1161
01:37:35,557 --> 01:37:38,560
[dramatic music continues]
1162
01:38:13,470 --> 01:38:15,472
[music fades]
1163
01:38:28,985 --> 01:38:31,988
[dramatic music playing]
1164
01:38:38,745 --> 01:38:43,917
Historians don't really like
to deal with counterfactuals,
1165
01:38:44,000 --> 01:38:45,544
with what might have been.
1166
01:38:51,800 --> 01:38:53,552
They want to talk about history.
1167
01:38:54,845 --> 01:38:57,347
"How the hell do you know,
McNamara, what might have been?
1168
01:38:59,015 --> 01:38:59,850
Who knows?"
1169
01:39:02,185 --> 01:39:04,020
Well, I know certain things.
1170
01:39:10,694 --> 01:39:12,696
[music fades]
1171
01:39:13,488 --> 01:39:15,991
What I'm doing is thinking it through
with hindsight.
1172
01:39:16,741 --> 01:39:19,536
But you don't have hindsight
available at the time.
1173
01:39:20,120 --> 01:39:23,373
I'm very proud of my accomplishments.
1174
01:39:23,915 --> 01:39:28,628
And I'm very sorry that in the process
of accomplishing things, I've made errors.
1175
01:39:33,300 --> 01:39:36,303
[hopeful music playing]
1176
01:39:56,031 --> 01:39:57,491
We all make mistakes.
1177
01:39:59,409 --> 01:40:01,036
We know we make mistakes.
1178
01:40:05,290 --> 01:40:08,418
I don't know any military commander
who is honest
1179
01:40:08,502 --> 01:40:10,879
who would say he has not made a mistake.
1180
01:40:15,926 --> 01:40:17,552
There's a wonderful phrase:
1181
01:40:18,762 --> 01:40:20,180
"The fog of war."
1182
01:40:23,016 --> 01:40:24,851
What "the fog of war" means is:
1183
01:40:24,935 --> 01:40:26,269
War is so complex,
1184
01:40:26,353 --> 01:40:28,939
it's beyond the ability of the human mind
1185
01:40:29,022 --> 01:40:31,149
to comprehend all the variables.
1186
01:40:33,443 --> 01:40:34,819
Our judgment,
1187
01:40:34,903 --> 01:40:36,071
our understanding,
1188
01:40:37,030 --> 01:40:38,365
are not adequate.
1189
01:40:40,492 --> 01:40:43,453
And we kill people unnecessarily.
1190
01:40:48,375 --> 01:40:51,795
Wilson said,
"We won the war to end all wars."
1191
01:41:02,556 --> 01:41:04,975
I'm not so naive or simplistic
1192
01:41:05,684 --> 01:41:07,686
to believe we can eliminate war.
1193
01:41:10,772 --> 01:41:13,775
We're not gonna change human nature
any time soon.
1194
01:41:24,286 --> 01:41:27,205
It isn't that we aren't rational.
We are rational.
1195
01:41:28,623 --> 01:41:30,041
But reason has limits.
1196
01:41:48,602 --> 01:41:52,689
There's a quote from T.S. Eliot
that I just love:
1197
01:41:52,772 --> 01:41:54,524
[music fades]
1198
01:41:54,608 --> 01:41:57,110
"We shall not cease from exploring,
1199
01:41:58,987 --> 01:42:01,239
and at the end of our exploration,
1200
01:42:01,323 --> 01:42:03,450
we will return to where we started,
1201
01:42:04,784 --> 01:42:07,871
and know the place for the first time."
1202
01:42:07,954 --> 01:42:11,207
Now that's, in a sense,
where I'm beginning to be.
1203
01:42:15,879 --> 01:42:18,882
[pensive music playing]
1204
01:42:29,017 --> 01:42:32,270
[man]
After you left the Johnson administration,
1205
01:42:32,354 --> 01:42:35,315
why didn't you speak out
against the Vietnam War?
1206
01:42:39,694 --> 01:42:42,197
[Robert]
I'm not gonna say any more than I have.
1207
01:42:43,281 --> 01:42:46,159
These are the kinds of questions
that get me in trouble.
1208
01:42:47,202 --> 01:42:53,750
You don't know what I know about
how inflammatory my words can appear.
1209
01:42:58,213 --> 01:43:01,549
A lot of people misunderstand the war,
1210
01:43:02,592 --> 01:43:04,678
misunderstand me.
1211
01:43:06,179 --> 01:43:08,682
A lot of people think
I'm a son of a bitch.
1212
01:43:11,017 --> 01:43:14,062
[man] Do you feel in any way responsible
for the war?
1213
01:43:14,145 --> 01:43:15,480
Do you feel guilty?
1214
01:43:16,690 --> 01:43:18,692
[Robert] I don't want to go
into further discussion.
1215
01:43:18,775 --> 01:43:21,695
It just opens up more controversy.
1216
01:43:23,488 --> 01:43:25,115
I don't wanna add anything to Vietnam.
1217
01:43:25,198 --> 01:43:27,409
It is so complex that anything I say
1218
01:43:27,492 --> 01:43:30,787
will require additions and qualifications.
1219
01:43:35,917 --> 01:43:38,586
[man] Is it the feeling that
you're damned if you do
1220
01:43:38,670 --> 01:43:40,088
and if you don't, no matter what?
1221
01:43:40,171 --> 01:43:41,673
[Robert] Yeah, yeah, that's right.
1222
01:43:41,756 --> 01:43:42,882
[music fades]
1223
01:43:45,552 --> 01:43:47,929
And I would rather be damned if I don't.
1224
01:44:12,162 --> 01:44:15,165
[dramatic music playing]
98712
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